Updates to List Pages

Today (Dec 6) we are announcing an update to the List pages on the IMDb desktop experience. This update is part of the broader site changes announced recently (https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/upcoming-changes-to-several-imdb-features-du6man1opd5q0). After in-depth discussion and examination, we have decided to simplify the features and functionality for lists. We have merged “compact view” and list editing into a single Edit experience. In that one view, you can now modify your text and add, copy, delete and move items. We have also pulled List actions (edit, export, settings) together into a 1-click menu (the 3 vertical dots on the top right of the page). You will now also find two new options in the Refine menu: ‘In Theaters’ and ‘Keywords.’ Tech constraints on the new system prohibit us from continuing to support drag-and-drop from the Edit view; we appreciate your understanding. For more information about Lists, see the IMDb Help Center.

The rss feed no longer returns rss content, it returns html for a web page. Not good.

I don't see this on any response list from IMDB, so I'm adding my reply with this issue.

I hope IMDB fix the lists so they minimally have the previous functionality, because this is sad to see a regression. Everyone wants to make things so they "think" they are prettier but they really have less function and usability and IMDB have done the same. ASK the users BEFORE making changes.

Yes, I understand you needed to update the code behind IMDB. But the usefulness and success of IMDB is grounded in the user interface and usability along with the collected data, much of which is user-submitted.

The announcement did nothing to prepare the users for a massive change to how parts of the site work and there was little or no interaction between the users using the site and the developers because many key holes were created in the interface, for example in the list area where most of the functionality that people relied on to administer and utilize their lists was removed or altered so much as to be unusable.

Unfortunately, now IMDB have a storm of user hate in a very unmanageable format because the emotional responses vastly outnumber the usable suggestions. Had the changes been put in front of the users BEFORE the re-design, the users could have voted through their favorite features and IMDB would have understood what was being used and what was important. Now your job is much harder. I know that many users who rely on the data and data functionality are going away from IMDB as a result of this change and going to other sites instead. I'm only guessing but I think many of those users were the ones contributing as well. IMDB need to act quickly before the user abandonment turns to into an unstoppable torrent. Good luck.

I don't even know where to start. So, let me get this straight, first you removed the forum feature, pretty much stabbing your entire community in the back and shooting yourselves in the foot, and now you've literally just removed the only other two things I use your effing site for? I come here to create lists and look at how TV episodes are rated and ranked among each other through the Episode List feature for each TV show, and now they're both gone. The list feature doesn't work at all for me now. I use an iPad. The mobile site doesn't have profiles, and the app doesn't allow you to edit lists, so they're both shoddy, and I use the desktop site. Now, when I just tried to edit a few lists, I added films and couldn't put them in an order. I typed in the number where I wanted the item to go, and it didn't go there. You've screwed it up. You've screwed up the two reasons I use your site in one update. It's upsetting that my favourite site is so insistent on screwing themselves over. Upsetting and infuriating.

I'm actually starting to look forward to the day the main guys in charge are crying on their sofas with a big bottle of vodka, wondering why they chose to screw over their fans for no reason at all, not listening to feedback. What you're doing to this site is suicidal and ridiculously stupid. Sort these huge bugs out and add back the features you just removed. Sort yourselves out.

Why can't i edit the movies in my list ? For example: i have a list of movies that i want to watch and if i watched one of the titles in that list I'd add a seen on it and in color also "green", but i cannot add anything now for some reason? I click edit and now it's just says: "add a note" and when i do and press done there is still nothing there!? :( and i had nearly 100,000 views on my list and it's changed to 19,000?? Could someone please let me know whats going on? Thank you in advance.

@CrankitupYou entered your comment and pressed Done?Did you tap the checkmark to the immediate right of comment to save it, not the undo arrow.Otherwise I've seen Done ask if you want to discard your changes.

The update did clobber the View counts. They were gone and when the returned they were greatly reduced. The update was Dec 6; don't remember when the counts came back. Apparently they ARE increasing again.

@breroes: Actually, it is! I deliberately "changed" my view count and kept it consistent in this thread to try to get IMDb to reveal that they still have the correct counts. I was hoping to catch them out. I even went to the effort of modifying my list comments that make reference to a view count.

They completely outplayed me by returning the correct view counts in full (despite someone earlier claiming that they "no longer had the data"). Now I'm the one who looks foolish! But I take some comfort from the fact that a lot of people are happy again and I was part of it. :)

Okay, I can also now move item 1312 to position 1320 of a 1323 item list without any bugs. Huge improvement. Thanks.

Export with commas in list titles still doesn't work. It used to work so there's no reason it can't work again. This is just some string parsing problem on your end. I'm not going to rename my list just to export it as CSV.

The biggest thing that needs fixing is reordering. Any system that requires you to scroll the entire length of the page multiple times to move one item one place is fundamentally broken.

Thanks for the work so far. You've done enough to keep me from fleeing IMDb immediately. Will check out the Android app. If it can do auto-load scrolling (such that I can load every film at once), I'll be utterly placated.

Edit: Okay, I appreciate the effort but there's no escaping the fact that the Android app is sub-par. I don't understand how you would allow the iOS app to get so far ahead of the Android app given their respective market share. Aim for feature parity ASAP. From what Col Needham told me, the iOS app is the single best way to rearrange a >1000 item list but I have no access to iOS.

I might do a bit of a mad one and beg around to see if anyone I know has an iPad I can borrow for a few days.

when moving title 1312 to position 1320, did you just edit the last 2 digits, leaving the comma, or did you enter all 4 digits omitting the comma, because without the comma I was able to make the change when I replicated your findings. Does "and no bugs" mean none of the crazy page annotations like "1,301 - 2 of 2" at bottom of screen, "2 titles? at top of screen?

You can, but not by searching in the Add title box. You have to know the title id. And then you may as well add it from the title page using the add-to-list functionality when you mouseover the +Watchlist icon.

I'm pretty sure they acknowledged this is a bug. If so, it'll probably be fixed fairly soon.

At the moment when I add a movie to my list I get a "title was successfully added to your list"; it's sent straight to the end of the list and does not remain on the page. I can't even edit the order manually. Is there a way I can revert to the old list format, or should I just wait for some update?

People are reporting they can edit position manually, but it is tedious. Here's what works: either reverse the sort order to make that last item show at the top of the list, or navigate to the last page of your list by altering the URL to include &page= the number.

Then you have to know the position number where the title goes, knowing it will go BEFORE the position you choose. Then navigate to the top of the list and Save List Order.

Take it one at a time, or consider carefully the impact of moving several at once. For instance, moving a title to position 3 and another to position 7 has different results depending on whether the titles being moved were in the 1-7 range to begin with.

Hopefully IMDb will improve the change position functionality, but you aren't completely stuck right now.

@watchinglotsofstuff: $alary? No thanks. I can imagine unfollowing some of these threads soon.

At this time, I only care about aspects of the site that enhance my current hobby project. I want the List functionality to be useful to me and others.

I don't want people to be frustrated unnecessarily, so I post suggestions to how they can get what they want/need with current features.

I don't want people bashing List functionality, especially not because they have misconceptions. Bashing is different than reporting bugs and making suggestions explained with potential usage.

Basically I hope that IMDb wants to make Lists into a superb feature. If the customer feedback makes it seem more negative than it's worth (like message boards?), they might decide to pull the plug.

I like old movies, and believe me, the data in the TCM "database" is laughably less than what we have at IMDb. Here's my current litmus test: do they list the choreographer or dance director in the the cast/crew of movies that had such personnel? I haven't found it anywhere but here.

Colin, question; in the midst of these updates, are you planning to add a feature where we can find lists on IMDb? Because right now, there's no way. You can't go through the most popular ones, the most likes, the only ones you can see are those that have been most recently made or by using google, which is limited usually to a scant few popular ones, we're talking about maybe a few dozen. Right now, the only way that we can make others remotely aware of our lists is to include links on others' lists, in a 'if I comment on yours, could you comment on mine' sort of way.

A feature like this would make lists far, far more accessible, hugely increasing views and therefore ad money.

How much revenue do those 100 million additional customers bring to the site?! How much data contribution and troll suppression do they bring?! Why do they matter so much?! Is it just because there are a whole lot of them?! Whatever...

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled IMDb lists.

What will it take to make you put the "add new" field for lists at the *top* of the page (in desktop version)? Scrolling to the bottom is tedious. Also, why does the list of suggestions (when adding a title to a list) no longer show images? It's impossible to know if you're adding the right version (when there are several identical titles).

I'm conflicted about the idea of having the addition box at the top of the list page. When you navigate to the end of the list and add from there, you see the title added immediately and can edit its description and position. (Adding from any other page does not provide that benefit, of course.)

For your application, and for reordering lists, and for moving/copying items, using the Previous/Next links, I'm wondering if a floating menu that allows us to click to reach the TOP or BOTTOM of the page would alleviate a lot of the scrolling frustrations. I have no idea how easy it is to implement such a thing, and I hope it wouldn't be too distracting, but I see it on other sites for quick access to social media accounts and chat activation, etc.

It's time for me to update my Bug and Suggestion lists; I'll add

Suggestion 18. list edit: floating menu to take us to the move/copy/reorder options at the TOP or to the navigation/add title at the BOTTOM of the edit page

If you feel that you'd still want an addition box at the top of the page, let me know and I'll add that too.

So far as the search within edit mode showing images with the titles: are you talking about the desktop version of the site, because that wasn't happening before the Update, and it would make the dropdown quite long. Here's an idea: after I've put in my title and scanned the most likely results, I'd love an option to open the full search results in a new tab, and that would perform the same search as we get from the search box on every page.

Suggestion 19: list edit, add title: as part of the drop-down results, provide a link that would show full search results in a new tab, namely the same results we'd get from the search box at the top of every page.

For Sug 18, I'm saying go to the move/copy/reorder row, not the top of the whole page, and go to the page nav/add title location, not the bottom of the whole page. The difference being a potentially lengthy list description area at the top, and all the goodies IMDb provides (and I sometimes use) at the bottom.

For Sug 19, I'm expecting the search RESULTS to come back, and apparently not the results provided by the add title algorithm, but the results provided by the "normal" search.

If your statement stands, and was meant to indicate that you think it's easy programming, excellent.

But since running extra scripts can become the cause or the scapegoat for things not working properly, I'm not going to lobby for someone outside of IMDb to get busy.

@bderoes: Regarding your #18: I'm quite able to use the keyboard End/Home keys to get to
the end of a page, but it's still one extra click, when they could
easily include the Search/add field *both* on top and at the bottom, without any need for floating menus or whatever. It would fit nicely just below "List Title" and "List Description" at the top.

I
make list of watched movies every year and it usually includes 120-150
titles. Since the page cut-off is 100 list items, I don't see newly
added items directly anyway (unless I reverse the sort). It should be simple enough to make a function that lets you skip directly to the newly added item, if needed?

Regarding #19: It most definitely worked this way before. When adding a title to a list (on desktop - I'm only ever using imdb on desktop) you entered the name in the search field, hit "Search" and you would be presented with a list of suggestions, which included an image thumbnail and also an indication of what type of title it was (movie, TV Series, short etc.). This was super helpful. Now, to find the right title, you have to know which year it was released (and I have no idea what you're supposed to do if there are two works released the same year with the same title). To see which title you picked you have to add it to the list - only then do you get to see the thumbnail image & type. If you picked the wrong one, you have to delete and try again - extremely cumbersome for something that should be (and used to be) very simple!

There are some not too advanced workarounds for both of these things (Home/End button for the first one and a right-click+open in new tab for the second one), but I'm annoyed that seemingly basic functionality was left out of the interface. We shouldn't have to find workarounds for how to easily find the right title to add to a list! I could possibly live without an image thumbnail if I have to, but then at least show us the category in the search results!

Regarding add title placement on the page: Yes, the add title box on both top and bottom sounds like a good idea, as did

Suggestion 5: Edit mode: need page navigation and Done button on top and bottom of each page.Suggestion 6: Edit mode: need copy to, move to, delete and Save List Order on top and bottom of each page.

But once you've entered 10 or more lines for list description, and double navigation, and double add boxes, plus the big Ad atop the page, that's a lot of scrolling just to see the first title on the page.

My list of suggestions is supposed to represent what everyone requested, so I'll make your request #18: Edit mode, place a duplicate Add Title box at the top of the page, and make mine #19: Edit mode, provide floating menu to take us to the move/copy/reorder options near the TOP or to the navigation/add title near the BOTTOM of the edit page, not to the physical top and bottom of the page.

Regarding the (former) #19, in addition to a lot of other list building, I had spent the 2 days just prior to the Dec 6 Update building a 577 title list using the Add box in the old Edit mode, and the dropdown once you hit Search definitely listed titles without images. After the update, I was startled by the new dropdown, because it started making suggestions while I typed, and they were blue instead of black, and the font was bigger so many titles were wrapping to 2 lines. Plus they're blue because they are active links, which they were not on Dec 5.

I always found the Add Title search inadequate to resolve conflicts (as you describe), especially because it didn't present the same results as the full search from the box atop every IMDb page, when you click for the full results. (The Add Title results are even worse now, omitting short films and TV episodes. I'm pretty sure they're working on that.) That box atop every page currently presents images in the dropdown of suggestions. My (former #19) was a brainstorm regarding my frequent need to see the full list of choices before being able to choose, and I don't like having to re-enter my search.

I won't publish the Suggestions list for a while in case you want to want to revise #18. Sounds like you'd also like to see #21 Edit, Add title, show thumbnail image with title matches, and make results box bigger to accommodate that.

@Jeorj: I'm aware of the "monkey"s (and use one script), but I only became aware of bookmarklets recently. Is there a good clearinghouse for them? Or do you grow your own. (I don't speak JS. Don't even read it, really.)

I write my own, and I'm quite uncertain of a good clearinghouse as of the time. However, as I understand it, David-CG has been into this stuff for a little longer than I have been. This subscriber may be hosting some useful tools.

I've not made up my mind where to publish the scripts or bookmarklets I use. (If there is a really short one, then I will just post it directly to the forum.) I'd like to test them thoroughly first, for one thing. I also have concerns about portability across multiple browsers, when I only really use two browser makes. I've not thoroughly familiarized myself with jQuery syntax yet, which I know to be an important thing to know as far as Web development goes (as AJAX operations are carried out in different ways in different browsers). Learning the syntax of a language is of course rarely the hard part but rather learning how to make effective use of the function libraries and having an awareness of how the compiler software (or interpreter software) may optimize the source code or executable code. I'm mostly willing to teach myself any scripting or programming language.

Simple because you know what the items are and can see it all on one small page. Now with the current layout you have the following list:

1. Milk - an opaque white fluid rich in fat and protein, secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their young.

2. A dozen eggs - an oval or round object laid by a female bird, reptile, fish, or invertebrate, usually containing a developing embryo. The eggs of birds are enclosed in a chalky shell, while those of reptiles are in a leathery membrane.

3. Bread - food made of flour, water, and yeast or another leavening agent, mixed together and baked.

4. Head of lettuce - a cultivated plant of the daisy family, with edible leaves that are a usual ingredient of salads. Many varieties of lettuce have been developed with a range of form, texture, and color.

5. Tomatoes - a glossy red, or occasionally yellow, pulpy edible fruit that is typically eaten as a vegetable or in salad. the South American plant of the nightshade family that produces this fruit. It is widely grown as a cash crop, and many varieties have been developed.

Click to page 2 (because only 5 results per page)

etc. etc. etc.

Now you could want to have that option just to make sure you have the correct item but in compact mode you mostly know what you want when you go to the store (and even if you don't you can just quickly right click on the item, open in new tab to see detailed descriptions/pictures). In addition say you wanted to know what order you had them in using only the above image/description display... and say that list wasn't just 10 but 100 or 1,000. You don't need all that information or huge pictures.

Anyway hope this illustration drives home my point how annoying and awful no compact mode is (not just to make you hungry either). If IMDB can at least allow 250 results per page compact mode viewing for the author that would be fine.

The following is a bookmarklet (or script code prefixed with a out-syntax scheme identifier) which, when used on an IMDb list page (for titles or persons), will toggle the display in such a way as to render a compact view of sorts.

If you know what a bookmarklet
is, then you already know what to do, otherwise to "install" the tool,
you would highlight the aforementioned source code (a JavaScript URI), copy it (to the clipboard) and paste it into URL field of a browser bookmark, whether already existing or newly created.

To use a bookmarklet, you "visit" it while having the particular webpage
(in all of the Web) as the active tab in your browser. You don't need
to understand JavaScript or any scripting language to use a bookmarklet.

The properly-encoded URI for that same source code is javascript:(function()%7Bvar%20d=document,c,ml=/%5E%5C/list%5C/ls%5Cd+(%5C/.*%7C$)/,s=%22%7Bdisplay:none%7D%22,el=/%5C/other-2848344672%5C._CB514892132_%5C.css$/,ei=%22compact-view-style-sheet-rudimentary%22;if(!ml.test(location.pathname))return;if(!d.compacted)c=%5Btrue,%22.lister-item-image%22+s+%22%5Cn%22+%22.ratings-bar%22+s+%22%5Cn%22+%22.text-small%22+s+%22%5Cn%22+%22p%22+s+%22%5Cn%22+%22.wtw-option-standalone%22+s+%22%5Cn%22+%22%22%5D;else%20c=%5Bfalse,%22%22%5D;var%20e=d.getElementsByTagName(%22link%22),i;for(i=0;i%3Ce.length;i++)if(el.test(e%5Bi%5D.href))%7Be%5Bi%5D.disabled=c%5B0%5D;break%7Dvar%20e=d.getElementById(ei);if(!e)%7Be=d.createElement(%22style%22);e.id=ei;d.head.appendChild(e)%7De.innerHTML=c%5B1%5D;d.compacted=c%5B0%5D%7D)(), by the way. I previously presented this with line breaks and indentation to make it
easier to read and thereby easier to understand, which in turn helps a
semi-experienced individual screen it for malicious script behavior and
errors in the flow of control that could unintentionally cause problems
with resource allocation on any computer on which it is executed,
meaning that trusting me would not be requisite for understanding that
the script is safe.

It's unfortunate that the collection of instructions for the script could not be fewer or shorter. (This one is 610 characters long, decoded.) I try to avoid posting scripts that are this long, but under the circumstances (with so many users complaining and pleading), I decided to go ahead. Think of it only as a temporary fix, as official proper solutions are rolled out in the coming months.

Thanks Jeorj Euler appreciate the effort. I might give that a try but I'm not too familiar with coding and bookmarklet. Its ridiculous we have to go to these lengths to require features that were fine to begin with. I haven't browsed any lists since the change only to see if they gave the compact mode back.

I copy/pasted the readable version first, and when that had no effect on the title page I chose, I copy/pasted the compressed version. Same thing - until I noticed that copy had picked up a comma at the end. When I deleted that, the script worked.

To get the original version of the list back (decided I wanted to read some details, or refine it differently), I just refreshed the page.

I forgot to leave a note that the view toggle script has to be used when list page is set to the Detailed View mode. Hell, I forgot to make sure that the script sets the proper mode when executed. Hm...

You're welcome. I apologize for the inconvenience too, for the reason that I could've anticipated the server-side change that rendered the older script ineffective yet hadn't acted upon such an independent variable.

From the perspective of somebody with almost 7k reviews, let me say that I will tone down my review activity on imdb in the coming weeks to probably zero in the next months. If you give me easy access to my work, then I will be happy to return at some point, but I won't click 800 times to see my complete review history since the beginning, which I have to at this point and with every new review the number increases. I know that by sending a review, you withdraw all your rights to said review to imdb and I can live with that, but that you make it impossible for the more/most prolific writers to even gain access to their work is a negative deal breaker for me. If it needs to be and seemingly it does, then I say bye to imdb and may you get lucky with all your changes. I won't be an active part of that anymore though.

To the left of the title, you should see a chevron-like symbol with a plus sign (circled in red by me in the illustration below). Hover the cursor over the plus sign and you should see a list below that of all your lists. Click on the name of the list you want to add the film to, and it will be added to that list.

Notwithstanding this, I agree with you that it should be possible to add the film to the list by starting from the list page.

Good news: you can still add it using the title id, namely tt4545982.Also, I believe IMDb is working on getting short films and tv episodes working properly in the Add Title box of Edit mode. Don't know about supporting URL's there, although it would be nice.

Also, if you were willing to view the title page in standard mode, controlled in Site Settings: uncheck "Always display full cast and crew credits" (I think you have this one on)uncheck "Show reference view (old title/name page layout)"then you could also add to a list directly from the Title page, because you would see something like this next to the title when you mouseover the bookmark(+) icon:

Upon opening the spreadsheet, I've noticed this column is no longer there, and it was highly useful for calculating averages. Now, no such thing is possible without the terrible task of adding ratings up one by one!

ME TOO (As Charlize Theron would say). These graphs for years, ratings, number of votes were lovely. Also star-meter and date of birth for people's lists are necessary.Yesterday, I made 10 new entries in a list of 300 tiltes and tried to put them in the correct (chronological) order. ... Don't ask. It wasn't easy. If you move an entry from position 120 to 110 it works. If you move it from 110 to 120, it will go to 119. In the previous system if you wanted to enter a new item in Page 2 you would go there, the item appeared at the bottom of page and you could drag and drop it where you want. Now it will appear at the end, e.g. at position 1001, you'll have to go there and enter a position e.g. 162 you cannot see anymore.

I've been creating a long list of ranking movies, and now I can't change the order of the films I add to the list. Anything added only goes to the bottom of the list and cannot be moved to a different location in the list. I've tried edits on multiple devices, so I know it isn't the computer I am using. Is anybody else having this issue? Anybody have suggestions on how to fix it?

Col, is there going to be a fix for editing? As of now, we can't move list items from one position to another as we used to, only type in the number of the position we want to moved to, click edit and see how it looks, having to edit again if it needs changing. As you can imagine, making new lists, where you've got to move dozens if not hundreds of items around, will be absolutely chaos unless it goes back to the way it was.